YMMV / Ready to Die

• Awesome Music: One of the most popular and beloved hip-hop albums of all time, and for good reason.
• First Installment Wins: While Life After Death is still considered a classic, Ready to Die is usually pointed to as the superior album.
• Franchise Original Sin: Glam Rap gets a lot of heat from serious rap fans for being too "commercial", for trading topicality and novel flow for the glorification of hedonistic materialism, and for becoming far more prominent in the mainstream than any other rap subgenre. What a lot of these fans don't understand is that the genre's seeds were planted by this album and its music videos. Biggie adopted a slick, suave persona, and he could be seen wearing expensive suits and drinking champagne with R&B singers. That being said, the album (along with the rest of Biggie's discography) made it very clear that his character was still a gangsta at heart, with his classier image making him seem like a high-rolling mobster like those that had been already been fascinating the hip-hop community for over a decade by that point. Still, the fact that he stood out among the parade of inner-city gang bangers and brought Gangsta Rap to mainstream audiences led to a slew of imitators, which eventually led to the excesses that are all too common today.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Beyond the glaringly obvious example in the album title, Biggie boasts on "Juicy" that he's going to "Blow up like the World Trade". Biggie was referring to the 1993 "small fries" bombing of the World Trade Center, but it took on a far different meaning after September 11th, 2001. After that day, the line was often cut in radio play and samples (such as Jay-Z's "A Dream").
  • The title of the album is all that needs to be brought up due to this being the only album released when Biggie was alive. Two and a half years later, Biggie died in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. And let's not even get started with the posthumous release of second album Life After Death...
• Ho Yay: The opening bars of "Me & My Bitch": "You look so good, huh, I'll suck on ya daddy's dick"
• Magnificent Bastard: In "Everyday Struggle", the Notorious B.I.G. dropped out of school and became a drug dealer to deal with his bills and feed his daughter. Kicked out by his mother as a result, B.I.G. goes to Maryland with his friend Two-TECs where he can gain a higher profit. Taking the Amtrak railroad service with his henchwoman, he gives her the drug supplies, fully aware that she won't be searched as severely as a man, before she sells the drugs, thus ensuring the operation is a success. Upon learning that Two-TECs was killed and that their team was infiltrated, Biggie improvises by having his henchwoman take the fall for conspiracy, promising to make her rich when she's released from prison, while also supporting her family in the meantime. Even though he's aware that law enforcement knows his name, B.I.G., whilst still raising his daughter, ends the song by stating that he has to continue his drug dealing operations, with no indications that he got any comeuppance for his doings.
• Memetic Mutation: "Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead broke, man, I couldn't picture this!"
• Narm: Saying that a woman's so attractive "I'll suck on her daddy's dick" as Biggie does on "Me and My Bitch" is a bit out there for someone posturing themselves as a hardcore gangster in the 90's.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Suicidal Thoughts". Listening to this song, you really feel like you're there with Biggie, in a dark room at some ungodly hour, contemplating and finally committing suicide. The creepy, ominous and downright empty-feeling production does not help at all.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Downer Ending of "Me & My Bitch", in which Biggie finds his girlfriend murdered and weeps for her.
  • "Suicidal Thoughts", easily one of the most accurate and chilling looks into a suicidal mind in music.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The album is chock full of references to then-contemporary things like pagers and tape players. But the most notable example is probably "Juicy", in which Biggie boasts that he's now wealthy enough to afford the latest and greatest entertainment technology. Namely, "Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis / When I was dead broke, man, I couldn't picture this!".
• Values Dissonance: Today, using "faggot" is considered extremely homophobic, meaning his career would end right then and there if it aired on radio.

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